UKHSA - Useful Resources to Share With Staff

The UKHSA have shared three posters and two checklists that you might wish to share with your staff:

• When and how to contact the UKHSA Health Protection Team (HPT)

• Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI)  – Prevention

• Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI)  – Outbreaks

Please also note that flu (influenza) has begun to circulate across the UK.  COVID-19 swabs do not detect flu.

• The symptoms of flu and covid-19 (and for several other respiratory viruses) are very similar.

• For symptomatic residents/clients or staff, please always test using COVID-19 LFD.  If negative, then consider other viruses.  The HPT can assist with testing for other viruses, including Flu

• It is also possible that a person may be infected with both COVID-19 and Flu at the same time.  Be suspicious if your residents are particularly poorly and/or the infection appears to be spreading very rapidly.

Use our Checklists – one for acute respiratory infections and one for viral diarrhoea and vomiting.

If you have an outbreak of diarrhoea and vomiting, always call the HPT if:

• You suspect a food source as a cause – an indication of this might be that cases all arise within a very short time period

• Cases have blood in their stools

• Cases are severely affected and require hospital care

Rigorous Infection Prevention and Control measures are crucial to preventing transmission of all sorts of infections.

See UKHSA Infection Prevention and Control and Winter Readiness - South West Councils (swcouncils.gov.uk) for lots of useful information and advice